


Cloud to Ground

by manic_intent



Series: Electric Storm [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: A continuation to That Fic where Tony Stark has Storm's powers, Age Difference, Alternate Universe, And Thor is annoyingly presumptuous, Baby!Tony has a streak of insecurity as wide as Saturn, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Slash, and he is so not interested in being a Princess of anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 12:43:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony had been expecting the Asgard invite to run along the same lines as SHIELD's had: a token tour around the premises and then straight into a lab. He <i>hadn't</i> expected the crowds of curious onlookers, splendidly dressed in Lord of the Fucking Rings get-ups, the cheering, the Red Carpet of Forever, and the Throne Room of Blinding Doom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cloud to Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Just shedding off some ideas that got into my head after watching Iron Man 3 and the Thor 2 trailer.

I.

Tony had been expecting the Asgard invite to run along the same lines as SHIELD's had: a token tour around the premises and then straight into a lab. He _hadn't_ expected the crowds of curious onlookers, splendidly dressed in Lord of the Fucking Rings get-ups, the cheering, the Red Carpet of Forever, and the Throne Room of Blinding Doom. Seriously. Either the Asgardians had figured out how to transmute gold, or Tony was standing in a chamber that was worth way more than even the Stark family fortune.

Awkward.

At least he had remembered to dress up a little after packing for this offworld trip, but on hindsight maybe he should just have borrowed some of the other kids' drama class gear. Blazers and dress shirts just wasn't going to cut it. 

Thor smiled warmly at Tony as they made their way down the endless red carpet, and normally that would have been enough to make Tony weak in the knees, but whoah. Thor's Dad - Odin the All-Father, according to Wikipedia - was right there, on a blazingly golden throne that was probably the wet dream of any self-respecting absolute ruler, and beside him was Thor's Mom, the Lady Frigg, queenly and poised. 

Okay. He could do this. He was not going to freak out.

The crowd's murmuring rose to a crescendo for a moment before it was cut to silence by a raised palm from Odin. "My son. You have brought a guest?"

Thor inclined his head. "This day was written in the Old Stone, Father, written in the bones of our lands. The wyrm has begun to turn."

Another murmur surged through the crowds, but Odin straightened up sharply, with a cold, " _Silence_ ," that cut through the whispers like a knife. Fixing Thor with his single eye, he asked, flatly, "Do you understand what you have named, Thor?"

"I do, Father." Tony flinched when Thor pressed one big palm on his shoulder, managing to stifle a squeak of surprise, focused as he was on studying the room. "Show them your mantle." 

"Here? Indoors?" At Thor's nod, Tony shot Odin an anxious glance, then grit his teeth and straightened up, holding up his palms. He could feel the storm gathering, on the edge of his consciousness, but instead of the instant connection that he was used to, back on Earth, there was a severance, somehow, as though he was behind a wall, battering at it. Beyond, the storm was an alien thing, vast, far _older_ somehow, _different_ ; it heard him, watched him, but it would not come. 

Shutting his eyes, Tony bent his will to it, clenching his hands, willing it to come to him, to sweep him up in the heft of its winds, to drop lightning into his palms. The alien storm gathered closer, closer yet, but it wasn't listening, he was sweating and-

Fingers tightened firmly over his shoulder. "Enough." 

Tony let out a harsh gasp as he snapped open his eyes, blinking sharply. "I don't understand, I could feel it there, but it wouldn't listen to me, I-"

"Stormchild," Odin was rising from the throne, again cutting the anxious whispers from the crowd into silence, and he descended, padding towards them. Tony clenched his hands at his sides and forced himself to stand his ground, staying silent even as the old man… God… alien… looked him curtly over, then glanced back over to Thor. "This troubles me, Thor. I had not foreseen it, not so soon."

"Change is not our enemy."

"Aye, perhaps. But for the first time since Mjolnir awoke in your hand the skies of Asgard have turned to iron." 

Tony snuck a quick peek past the vast arches over the balcony beyond the crowds, that looked out over the gleaming city of spires and towers, and saw that Odin was right - above, pressed as though held fast beyond a glass dome, were the roiling gunmetal clouds of the alien storm, its impenetrable bulk occasionally flashing bright with lightning. 

There was fear in the crowd, Tony realized belatedly, as the whispers grew louder; the drawn faces glancing quickly between Tony and themselves were pale with fear and tension. 

What the hell had he gotten himself into _now_? And it had only been half an hour or so, give or take interstellar travel. Rogue would be so proud. 

"But this day _was_ written."

"Aye." Odin breathed out heavily. "I must think on this. Welcome to Asgard regardless, Stormchild. Perhaps we will speak again."

The tone of dismissal was clear, and Thor inclined his head before leading Tony back down the Endless Red Carpet. Tony tried not to make it seem too obvious how he was keeping nervously close to Thor, up until he was taken up a winding stair away from the crowds, to an upper chamber with a ring of couches around a table heavy with plates of unidentifiable fruit. Too unnerved to investigate, Tony rounded on Thor, frowning. 

"What the fuck was that all about?"

Unperturbed, Thor had sprawled over the nearest couch, grinning and golden and gorgeous, but even as Tony's libido made a concerted effort to regain control of his brainspace, beyond the wide balcony and high above, the alien storm waited as a pointed reminder. _Watching_ , Tony thought, and shivered. The storm on Earth - it hadn't been like this. It had just been _there_ , elemental. Sure, he thought of it as if it was alive, but objectively, he knew that it wasn't - it was just a climatic effect that he could control through a trick of genetics. 

_This_ storm-

"Ragnarok," Thor said blithely, as though that explained everything.

"What? What does a game have to do with anything?"

"It means the end," Thor explained, after a brief moment of puzzlement when Tony belatedly remembered that Thor quite possibly wasn't up to date on 'Midgardian' computer games, "The end of a cycle. The Dark Days."

"JARVIS?"

"Unfortunately there is no reception on Asgard, sir." 

No Wikipedia. Damn. Tony felt painfully disconnected already. "Uh… are we talking about the end of the world? Your world? What did that have to do with me being here?"

"The wyrm turns. The storm's child awakens. Asgard falls, and is remade. The world is broken, it is reborn." Thor absently curled big fingers around Mjolnir's handle. "I am looking forward to it."

"I thought I was here on _vacation_ ," Tony managed to grit out, "Not, y'know, heralding the apocalypse!" 

"You were but one step in a whole," Thor's smile faded, and he glanced away. "The wyrm has turned. My brother is no longer my brother."

Okay. Awkward. A little hesitantly, Tony inched over, climbing up on the couch beside Thor, and managed not to yelp when a big arm curled easily around the small of his back and dragged him effortlessly - hot! - into Thor's lap. Thor was grinning again, his eyes gleaming with hunger as he looked Tony slowly over, but he made no further move, and didn't press further when Tony leaned over for a peck on the lips.

Disappointed, Tony pulled back, and the hunger was shuttered away now, big splayed hands stroking gently up and down his arms, as though Thor was trying to calm down a spooked animal. Uncertain whether to press the issue or throw a tantrum or freak out, Tony took refuge in Science. "What's with the storm on your world?"

"Ah." Thor seemed to think this over for a moment, then he asked, in a weird non-sequitur, "What shape is your world, Stormchild?"

"Umm. Round?" 

"As was ours. Once, a long time ago. Before your world knew life, perhaps longer still. We flourished. Our technology preserved us, slowed our ageing processes, made most of us effectively immortal. But for all the wonders we could make, we could not save our sun."

"Supernova," Tony supplied slowly, and Thor nodded. Well, what did you know. Some of the Professor's introductory astronomy classes had stuck, after all. 

"A construction project was begun, instead; a vast one, planetary in scale. It was named YMIR, and it was my father's brainchild." Thor's gaze had grown soft, with reference. "This was before my birth. Our planet - then known as Yggdrasil - its core was reconstituted into a vast battery, with the hopes that part of the shockwave could be arrested and contained within it. Matrices and leys were drawn, each seeking to create at any moment a vast temporal shield that would provide protection during the main moment of the shockwave."

"So it worked? Or it didn't?" 

"Partly," Thor shrugged. "The land mass now known as Asgard was in the shadow of the sun when the shockwave occurred; its shields held firm. The rest of Yggdrasil was not as lucky, and the planet, as was expected, shattered into several splinters. Of all of them, only Asgard has retained Yggdrasil's original level of civilisation. The core battery held; the aftershock energy from our dying sun has powered our civilisation since."

"And the rest?"

"We are at war with the rest," Thor admitted. "It has been a long war, and for the most part, we have enjoyed an unspoken ceasefire. Much of the other realms were warped by the dying rays of the sun, in various ways. Some worlds, like Jotunheim, are fully dark." 

"So the 'Dark Days'?" Tony prompted warily.

"The temporal realignment - the Odinsleep - that Father undertakes now and then has the side effect of allowing Father glimpses of possible futures. In many of them, he foresaw a great war." Thor smiled broadly. "A glorious battle."

"You can't be serious." Tony fought the urge to facepalm. He was _so_ grounded. There was no way he would be able to explain this to the Professor. 

"I do not speak in jest," Thor retorted, frowning a little. 

"No, I mean… that is… well, fuck," Tony concluded irritably. "I seriously thought this was going to be a holiday, Thor. I mean, if I had known what you were going to pull, I would've have picked that SHIELD internship."

"Would you?" Thor asked, oh-so-seriously, and under those worried, gorgeous blue eyes, Tony melted. Damn his hormones. The next kiss was far less chaste, especially when Thor curled impossibly strong fingers around the back of his skull and dragged him closer, licking into his mouth until Tony was blissed out and whimpering and wrecked just from kissing. He could feel Thor getting hard, hells, and Tony couldn't help but rub against whatever he could get at and try to bite down on an embarrassing whine. 

"I sense that you're going to have to epically make this up to me," Tony managed to gasp, when he corralled some functional brain power, "And quite possibly later help me explain this to the Professor and maybe Fury and- fuck, fuck-" Thor had mouthed down his neck, beard bristling and ticklish, and had latched on over his collar, tonguing his skin, then sucking hard enough to sting even as he palmed Tony through his pants and fuck, fuck but that was _good_. 

"What would you have me explain, Stormchild?" Thor asked, sounding amused, bastard; if his eyes weren't so blown with naked lust Tony would have been tempted to punch Thor in the mouth.

"I'm pretty… aah… sure that 'Causing the Apocalypse' ranks as an instant 'fail' in the Professor's… ugh, Jesus… ethics class… where are we-"

"Not here," Thor rumbled, deep and rough against his ear before he bit down, and Tony dizzily registered being picked up as though he weighed nothing - hot!- and they were moving, flying, something, as he nipped over Thor's jaw and licked up over to his mouth, whimpering, pride shot wide out into the ether. 

They were on a bed now, somehow, and Thor was pulling impatiently at his clothes, working out his belt and then his pants in short, sharp jerks before he was bracketing Tony's hips with his palms and bending down, _Christ_. Tony may or may not have let out a squeal at that point and lost considerable primary brain function. 

Wow. If this was what a spiritual experience was meant to be like, Tony was all fucking for it.

Nothing on the roof had prepared Tony for this. Thor was clearly intent on taking his time, despite Tony's cries and hands twisted in his mane and the way Tony's ankles were pushing abortively over his back, sliding over the thick crimson cloak. Whenever Tony got close to the edge, Thor would lick up and press his thumb firmly under his balls, fuck, grin lazily until Tony's stuttered begging turned into a wail, and then start all over again when he eased off. 

He was going to die. Maybe that was what the prophecy meant. Tony 'Stormchild' Stark, slain by the God of Thunder, method unprintable. _Hah_. Tony was vaguely aware of mildly hysterical, gasping laughter erupting from his general direction, and Thor was rising up, kissing up his throat to his mouth and swallowing it all, drinking him in until Tony could think of nothing else but Thor's weight, his musk, the warmth of his lips and the strength of his hands. 

It was only when Tony started to sob, tears and wrenching gasps and all that Thor let up and started to stroke him off, Christ, that grip of his, all that barely restrained _power_ \- 

Tony might, quite possibly, have passed out at some point. Embarrassing, yes. Awesome? Definitely. Thor was curled against him, a solid furnace of muscle, and he grinned wickedly when Tony blinked and looked up. 

"Sorry," Tony rasped, fumbling downwards, with some vague and belated idea of reciprocating, but Thor caught his groping wrist and brought it up to his mouth, brushing a whiskery kiss over his knuckles. 

"Not yet," Thor promised, nuzzling his wrist, ticklish and gentle before shifting up to kiss him, and maybe - maybe an apocalypse wasn't going to be _that_ bad.

II.

The alien storm, Thor told him, was partly a remnant of Yggdrasil's original climate and partly something that he vaguely termed 'dark matter', and which seemed to have no real description in any Midgardian language. 'Sunshadow', Sif had called it, giving cross cultural relativism a stab anyway - the outgoing shockwave from a dying sun had turned the storm malignant, semi-sentient and somehow, impossibly, capable of interstellar travel. The Asgardians had named the alien storm 'Fenris', and it apparently spent most of its time mauling the other splinter worlds; the temporal shield kept it averted from Asgard, somehow.

At least until now. Sitting on a balcony a mile up into the air, his hands pressed into impossibly soft turf, Tony stared up into the sprawl of the great storm that stretched as far as his eye could see; felt it watching him, somehow. It was thoroughly unsettling, but he was fascinated by it: he could feel its power, greater than any Earthbound storm.

Thor had been summoned into a private audience with Odin, and had left his minions to keep an eye on Tony. So far, only one said minion had seemed to take this order with any seriousness - Sif sat cross-legged beside Tony, while the others seemed to be rambling around the garden, taking naps and/or eating themselves silly. 

"We encountered the storm once before," Sif was saying, as she followed his gaze up to the domed sky. "We were in the Broken Lands - Helheim. It came upon us like a thief in the dark." Her face was still, her eyes distant. "Thor did not yet wield Mjolnir. We lost two of the einherjar, watched them scream as the storm burned them to ash."

Tony shivered. "But now - Mjolnir can control it, then?"

"Nay." Sif curled her fingers over her mile-long thighs, her smile wry. "But it can keep it sufficiently at bay. Thor can call lightning and the winds to do his bidding, but to wield the storm itself - that he cannot do."

Perhaps that was why Thor had been so… interested… when he had seen Tony wrapped up in the Earthbound storm, Tony mused. But this was an entirely different, probably highly irradiated kettle of fish, and really- "I don't know what you people think I am," he ended up confessing. "I'm a mutant, not some sort of special person right out of your myths." 

"But you called," Sif pointed out simply. "And Fenris has come."

Uncomfortably, Tony had no answer to that, and resorted in noting dryly, "I don't think I've ever heard of anyone having to go through _two_ apocalypses before. What could be worse than your sun blowing up?"

Sif lifted a shoulder into a gentle shrug. "Total extinction?"

Tony pulled a face. Certain people in Asgard needed surgical humour transplants, just saying. "… Never mind. I don't see why we're just sitting here," he added mulishly. It had almost been a _day_ now, and he had not been anywhere lab-related in the least. The feeling was distinctly unnerving. "If I'm here to control that storm, then why don't we head somewhere where I could give it a go?"

"It will kill you," Sif supplied flatly, her glance sharp and brutally honest. "If it can. It is good that you are eager, but let the All-father decide." 

"Mjolnir-"

"Fenris is an old beast, Stormchild," Sif cut in curtly. "It has walked the darkness between our worlds for longer than many of us have been alive; for longer than your world has known sentience. It is far more dangerous than you think."

"But you need it," Tony pressed, stubborn as always. "For what will come."

"The Valkyries and the einherjar will be sufficient." Sif, however, glanced down over to the other Warriors as she spoke, and for a moment, seemed uncertain. "They will be. You are far too young for our war. Thor should not have brought you here."

Tony arched an eyebrow, but Sif would not look at him, and eventually, he exhaled and lay down on the grass, fingers crossed over his chest. Above, the gunmetal storm prowled, with lightning as its heartbeat. _Soon_ , Tony found himself mouthing at it, and the pulse of lightning stilled, the clouds darkening for a brief moment before Fenris answered with a growling rumble of thunder.

III.

Muspelheim was some sort of hellhole of fire and lava, as far as Tony could tell, and the Warriors Three fanned out towards the lip of the rocky spur, watching the endless lake of fire beneath them.

Thor was watching the sky, and he did not look away even as he instructed, "Call Fenris, Stormchild."

Tony internalised a sigh. This was their third walk onto other worlds, and each time he had failed to raise the storm. He could _feel_ Fenris out there, somehow, sense the presence of the great storm over the impossible reach of space, feel its acknowledgement, but it would not come, remaining perched over Asgard. 

Nothing had changed this time round. Growing a little depressed about it all, Tony was about to admit defeat - yet again - to Thor when there was a shout from Fandral. Something was uncurling from the flames, a finger of lava and mottled, cooling scab-like rock, adding definition as it rose higher and higher until the serpentine shape was towering over them, seven stories high and thicker than the rock spur. Along its side jutted horn-like shapes that, to Tony's horror, began to move, shaking themselves out, grasping at the air - humanoid _arms_. Bile rose in his throat, and he swallowed hard, clenching his hands.

"Defend yourselves! To arms! Heimdall!" Thor called, hefting Mjolnir as the Frankenstein-fire-serpent-horror-thing opened jaws that were impossibly wide and _screamed_ , a raw and multitonal sound of shattered grief, Christ. Lovecraft would have run for the godsdamned _hills_.

The ground abruptly quaked under their feet, sending Tony tumbling off balance with a yelp, scrabbling at the rock face as he spun, barking his ribs on the rock as the world tipped madly and he was falling, watching helplessly as the huge serpentine length slammed again against the rock spur. Great chunks of rock beneath the flat plane he had been standing on sank down, splashing into lava, sinking. Tony landed hard enough on a ledge to slam the breath from his lungs, and he couldn't see Thor as he scrambled to his feet, trying and failing to fly - no winds - and then Tony froze flat against the sheer wall of the cliff. 

Before him, the sinuous stretch of the monster was looping up and out of the lava, the grasping hands along its sides reaching and clenching blindly. Tony didn't dare to breathe, wide-eyed, as the monstrous thing stilled, then there was a roar from the other side of the broken spur, and Mjolnir was flashing forward, slamming through the bulk of the beast that still hovered before the rock. There was another, ear-splitting shriek, and the loop closest to him arched closer, hands reaching out, he was going to _die_ on a planet so fucking far from home-

A sudden icy deluge made him yelp and instinctively bring up his hands, flinching; then he looked up with a slow blink of shock. The sky was gunmetal gray, and the ice-cold rain had solidified the loop just before him; the monster was rocking back, screeching as its body cooled rapidly under the relentless, drenching storm, shaking to pieces or turning to spurs of rock. The sulphur stink was washing away, replaced by something that smelled like his workshop, all iron and copper; above, the storm howled its triumph with a crash of deafening thunder. 

Fenris had come.

Dumbly, Tony turned his face up into the sky, and cautiously called the winds to him; then he laughed as he was lifted off his feet, winging up into the heart of the alien storm, forgetting for that moment his near death at the lava creature and even Thor and the others. Lightning spun at his fingertips, thick clouds wrapped over his shoulders, and through it all he could sense Fenris itself, snuffling at his heels, impossibly alien, _curious_. Bright jagged flashes burned over banks of thick clouds, like ragged teeth, but unafraid, Tony called the lightning back to his hands, tricked up a brilliant sphere that sparked and jumped as he juggled.

" _Tony_!" 

"I'm here," Tony called back breathlessly, waving aside the clouds. There was a moment of mulish hesitation, and then the banks cleared; he was aloft, far higher than he had intended, the Warriors Three in small specks beneath. Thor floated before him, Mjolnir spinning in a lazy arc beside him, and he looked worried as he came closer. Wary. No hunger or playfulness now - there was a curious bent to Thor's face that took Tony a moment to process. 

It was _awe_. 

Now confused and unnerved, Tony bit down on his lip, and around him, Fenris snarled as it seemed to sense his mood, in a deep rumble that shook him to his bones; lightning pulsed around them both like a crown of thorns.

"Come," Thor held out his hand. "Tony. Let us return to Asgard." 

Fenris growled again at that, the clouds thickening menacingly around them, and for a long moment Tony wanted to shake his head, still breathless with excitement and disoriented. If Fenris could walk the worlds, then maybe so could he - he could ride the alien storm, step between the stars. He could-

"Tony," Thor said again, gently. "Come."

 _No_ , Tony thought, even as he nodded slowly, blinking. Thor floated closer, grasping his wrist, and then there was the disorienting blur of slipspace, and they were in the Bifrost, its great brass rings already beginning to wind down. Clustered near the entrance, the Warriors Three stared openly at Tony, the same unnerving awe worn openly on their faces. Only Heimdall remained impassive as ever.

"What?" he asked them peevishly, and Hogun actually flinched, but muttered something and looked away. They hurried out at some hidden signal from Thor, who had curled an arm around Tony's waist, lifting off into the sky as the doors to the Bifrost arched fully open. "What was that about?" 

"Legends are difficult to accept in the flesh." 

"Oh, come _on_ ," Tony muttered disbelievingly. "You're a God. _The_ God of Thunder. I'm just some skinny mutant kid out of what seems to be the technological ass end of the _universe_. _Your_ people survived a fucking _supernova_."

"You are not _just_ a child," Thor disagreed, with a jerk of his chin, but Tony didn't need to follow his line of sight. He could already feel Fenris gathering high above, blotting out whatever contrived artificial satellite-sun that Asgard had built above it. 

"It wanted me to go with it," Tony blurted out. "Fenris, that is. It could… it could travel between space itself, somehow. It was going to take me." 

"It may not mean you ill," Thor's voice remained calm and even, but his arm curled more tightly around Tony's waist. "But neither does it mean you well. Remember that, Anthony Howardson."

That annoying form of address startled Tony out of his funk, and he bared his teeth at Thor, only to see Thor grinning at him, playful again, and he sighed. Bait, duly eaten. "No. I suppose that it doesn't. That fire monster, what the hell _was_ it?"

"We call it Surtr," Thor looked away, his grin fading. "Once, it and the other sons of Muspell were also people. The supernova burned them, but did not kill them. They were remade, cast together." 

"And the other worlds…" Tony trailed off, fighting bile again, pulling in shallow breaths as Thor landed them both gently in the balcony of his personal chambers. 

_Cast together_. Jesus.

"Aye. Some were changed greatly. Some, not as much. But none other save for us in Asgard are near what we once were." Thor paused, and his lips quirked; he looked tired, then, _old_ , older than Tony knew time. "And we too, are changed."

Tony had a million questions now, about the other splinter worlds, about _Earth_ and humanity's remarkable resemblance to the Asgardians, about himself and about Fenris, but he found himself breathing deep instead, turning and reaching up. His hands clasped over Thor's bristled cheeks, drawing him over for a kiss, awkward and brushing at first, then deeper and fiercer. Big hands closed over his waist, lifting him effortlessly, and Tony choked out a laugh as he ended up bounced on the soft bed with Thor climbing over him, his eyes fierce and dark for one perfect moment before they kissed, and kissed, and kissed.

This time, Thor peeled off his clothes slowly, as though memorizing him, mouthing tenderly over each inch of flesh until Tony was ready to scream from frustration and addled want, pinning his wrists and slowing further whenever Tony tried to help out. Eventually Tony gave in, clenching his hands into the sheets and just hanging on, whimpering as Thor grazed his teeth teasingly up his ankles to his inner thighs, higher but not high enough, the bastard, laughing when Tony cursed him breathlessly. 

"May I?" Thor finally asked, and it took Tony a scrambled moment to register the thumb pressed up over his hole. The squeak he made was quite possibly embarrassing, and he hated how he was beginning to flush. Tony Stark did _not_ blush. 

"About time," he rasped instead, and Thor smirked at him, leaning over to pick up something out of Tony's immediate field of vision, then he was back, his mouth pressing hard over Tony's, muffling a chuckle as Tony scrabbled ineffectively at the clasps to his armour. 

The first finger already felt _huge_ , the slide hot and thick even with the lube and the added distraction of Thor pressing kitten licks up Tony's cock. The second finger _hurt_ even with his cock down Thor's throat, fuck, _awesome_ , and the third, after forever and a day when Thor was satisfied that he could take it, punched a whine out from his throat. 

"More," he gasped, because Tony Stark had never turned from a challenge in his life, as full as he felt with Thor's roughened fingers stroking within him, "Come on, uhgh, give me more, fuck, how are you still dressed-"

Thor ignored Tony's ineffective scrabbles, chuckling as he slunk back down to take him into his mouth again and _damn_. Tony's rational mind? Signing off for the day. Tony wailed, hips bucking, as a thrust of Thor's fingers pressed up against his prostate, all thoughts of being nice and polite about it all duly forgotten. Thor just took it with a moan of his own as he sucked, eyes closed as though _he_ was the one being wrecked by ecstasy and… and… that visual was the last straw.

Tony's cock made a manful and painful attempt to get hard again as he watched Thor lick come of his fingers, grinning lazily at Tony even as he did it, though he caught Tony's wrist again when Tony reached for the obvious, huge tent in Thor's breeches.

It took Tony a few croaks before he growled, "Seriously, what the fuck? I've already _seen_ your dick."

Possibly not the most romantic or diplomatic of come-ons, but Tony's operational brain was still derailed and sated. 

Thor, however, only shrugged and kissed his palm, this time, open-mouthed. "I cannot trust my self-control," he said, and the hunger in his voice was so raw that Tony sucked in a sharp, high breath.

"Hello? Earth to Thor? I _want_ to get fucked," Tony tried stating the obvious. Sometimes it helped. "Don't mind me if I don't immediately get up to speed, I swear I will, and even if I don't, I'm going to like it mfph-"

"Do not tempt me," Thor growled against his ear, when he let up from his kiss, and Tony stared dumbly at him, bewildered.

"Uhh. Are blowjobs and intercrural considered just heavy petting in your world or something? Because in _my_ world, they're usually just a prelude to some _more_ fun."

"It is…" Thor seemed to struggle for a moment, his face clouding, and when he lapsed into silence, Tony swallowed awkwardly, his post-coital high already fading fast.

"Hey," he muttered sheepishly. "Sorry." Maybe he had read Thor wrong. Asgard was rocking a medieval vibe even with their awesome tech, after all. Maybe they didn't have a free sexuality culture. Or maybe it was something else. It wasn't as though anyone from Earth knew anything about Asgard, save from some laughably inaccurate myths.

"The apology should be mine to make," Thor replied, his eyes closed for a long moment as he breathed in and out, as though to calm himself, then he kissed Tony again and this time it was slow, bittersweet, shockingly gentle. It unnerved Tony all over again, and he allowed Thor to kiss him into submission; when he slept it was with lips pressed against his ear, murmuring something warm and soft in a language that was impossibly old.

IV.

Thor was gone the next morning, bastard, and the ever polite servants informed Tony that Thor was 'in counsel' with Odin. Tony sulked, moped around the palace, and eventually was dragged out by Sif and the Warriors Three for a ride.

Asgardian horses were more or less similar to Earth horses, though there was a keen intelligence in their eyes and an unsettling focus to their stares. Tony had to be bundled, protesting, onto one, after which he just spent the entire time hanging on grimly and being jolted about. Worst afternoon _ever_. 

Heavy-handed attempts to talk to Sif about Thor's weird behavior only got non-committal nods in response, and Tony was sore, annoyed and short-tempered by the time they got back to Asgard proper in the evening. 

Thor only showed up at dinner, when Tony had already simmered down somewhat, and he looked so contrite that Tony forgot the rest of his temper. Dinner was pleasant, even if Tony didn't recognise just about all of the meat and bits served, but Thor didn't eat, electing instead to sit beside Tony and watch him with a weird sort of intensity until Tony felt self-conscious. 

"Is there something on my face?" Tony asked finally. "Seriously, what?"

Thor shook his head, his expression oddly solemn, and conscientiously asked Tony about his day; the conversation meandered into Tony's life at Westchester and the other kids, and then Tony promptly forgot about it the moment Thor eventually decided to take things over to the bed. Whatever Thor's problem was, blowjobs were _still_ awesome, especially when he managed to talk Thor into letting _him_ try it. His jaw ached like a bitch in the morning, but Thor's expression when he had swallowed down as much as he could take was going to keep him warm at night forever.

This turned into a weird routine, of sorts. The Warriors Three and Sif took him around Asgard during the day, let him tinker in the labs or explore the city, while Thor was squirrelled away doing presumably boring Head of State stuff. Tony started looking forward to dinner: Thor was flatteringly attentive, he was awesome to talk to, and the sex afterwards? Even _better_. And above it all, Fenris waited, the alien storm's presence almost friendly now, warm and curious. 

Naturally, given Tony's luck with Life in General, it all went to hell after a week of walking about thinking that his life was now perfect. Instead of escorting Tony to the palace, the Warriors Three had melted off, and Sif led Tony over the Bifrost bridge, distracted and pensive. Tony had given up on small talk ten minutes back, admiring the view of the impossible edge of the waterfall into eternity - and then he had spotted Thor, waiting just within the Bifrost chamber, Heimdall beside him.

Tony grinned, about to call out a greeting when he noticed his packed duffel bag at Thor's feet, and then the words faltered and slammed to a halt in his throat. Distantly, he could hear Sif backing off and retracing her steps, and he stood still, staring dumbly, like a fucking puppy that couldn't believe that it was about to be kicked. 

"What did I do?" he asked finally, hating how his voice sounded so plaintive, when Thor stepped over, keeping a gentle but inexorable grip on his arm as he led him into the Bifrost chamber. 

"Dreams end," Thor replied quietly, pressing a chaste and impossibly tender kiss over his forehead. "My Father's counsel rings true. You are not ready for war." 

"What-" Tony growled, frowning, but Thor continued to talk, his expression impassive now.

"Had Fenris not intervened with Surtr, you would be dead. We cannot protect you, and you cannot rely on the storm. Go." 

"But your prophecy-"

"Visions of the future," Thor cut in carefully, "Are often only possibilities, _svass_. It was…" he paused, swallowed, and looked away, "An honour to meet you, Stormchild."

"Thor!" Thor was stepping out of the chamber, however, the flow of his cloak lapping at his heels, and the spherical walls were beginning to spin, humming with temporal energy; Tony's cry was lost in the roar of the electric storm, Heimdall's grip bonebreakingly tight on his shoulder and then he was being pushed forward, falling through a tunnel, his scream lost in the winds. Panicked, he reached out for the storm, calling for it, but felt nothing until he was abruptly dropped neatly down against the ground. 

Exit velocity should have smeared him against the sand like so much meat jam, not bounced him gently on the dirt. Tony blinked dumbly, rolled onto his back, and was just in time to see a gray vortex spiral upwards into an otherwise brilliantly clear blue sky. 

Holy fuck. 

He stayed that way for a long time, until the sky was beginning to dim, then Tony rolled onto his side with a harsh moan, the sound torn from his bones and from the tatters of his soul, and he rubbed his palms angrily over his eyes as they warmed up. 

He was _such_ an idiot. And to think that he had thought- 

The earth-storm picked up around him when he called for it, winds lifting him up into the sky, and once he was up high enough, as far as he could go, Tony screamed into the sky and the storm answered with a roar of thunder, blanketing him with its clouds, and hugged him tight with folds of lightning. 

Home. Fuck. He was home.

V.

Tony more or less hid in his lab until the other kids stopped asking him about Asgard, and picked fights with Rogue until _she_ stopped trying. At least the Professor hadn't said anything at all, not that he needed to, fucking mindreaders, though he had acted as though Tony hadn't ever left the school, which was weird as hell at the start. After a few days of enforced normalcy, Tony learned to be grateful for it, especially when the other kids took their cue from the Professor.

So. No Asgard. No SHIELD, either, which was a little disappointing. Tony trundled through mind-numbingly boring basic biology and painfully elementary mathematics and other subjects and went back to dreaming of tech and energy. He upgraded JARVIS a few times, finalised the Danger Room, and started work upgrading perimeter defenses. 

He grew older, took correspondence courses with MIT, graduated early and as a valedictorian and once, out of boredom and three-a.m.-sleeplessness-induced-inspiration, constructed a one-manned operational spacecraft based on a lateral exposition of Asgardian ley tech that ran on a tank of kinetically agitated water.

Tony got the Nobel prize for physics, not soon after, and felt awkward on the stage, even with the Professor and the others clapping at the front row. The anti-mutant protests outside were halfhearted - Oslo was a nice, hippy, and freezing cold part of Europe - but Dear Old Dad hadn't even bothered to come. Obi was seated in the reserved chair for family instead, clapping genteelly, his smile distant and calculating all at once, and Tony hated him a little (irrationally), hated Howard Stark a lot. 

And then his father died in a car accident, and named him, to everyone's surprise - Tony included - his absolute heir. Tony endured a week of the media shitstorm in New York before he slunk back to Westchester, deciding to let Obi and the lawyers deal with the company, heartsick and blindly angry, somehow. He hadn't loved Howard near the end, but he wished that he had. 

The memory of Asgard started to fade. The memory of _Thor_ was taking longer.

Months after Oslo, Tony was sitting on the roof, hands folded beneath his head, watching the stars, when the storm abruptly coalesced above him, rumbling and gunmetal dark. Irritated, Tony raised a hand to wave it away, but it stayed where it was, snarling and growling, and he sat up sharply with a gasp. 

The wind brought him up close, and the alien storm shrank back for a moment before it encircled him, as intense and as curious as ever; he could sense that this was only a fragment of it, that the rest of Fenris was stretched through slipspace, somehow, with filaments in many worlds, many realms. It had been looking for him.

"I'm here," he assured it softly, and it wasn't until his vision blurred that Tony realized that he was crying. "I'm here." 

Fenris snuffled around him with a low rumble that made his ears ring, and Tony reached out for it, wreathing his wrists with the lightning of a different world, laughing, sobbing all at once, until he was choking and snuffling and rubbing at his eyes. He was _years_ older now. He was Tony _fucking_ Stark, not some bright-eyed stupid kid who had thought that fucking off to another world to mess around would be the best adventure ever. 

Or maybe something good had come out of the whole mess after all, Tony thought fiercely, as Fenris snarled and made the lightning dance around Tony, like a corona of forked sparks. His control over the Earthbound storm had improved with time, but nothing had ever matched the absolute rush he had felt when Fenris had first engulfed him. As to _now_ , when he held both storms in the palms of his hands - hell, he had never, ever felt better.

VI.

SHIELD showed up the next morning, predictably: Director Fury probably had some sort of 'Reality Crisis: Urgent!' alarm attached to his bedside table or something. Agent Coulson hadn't seemed to have aged, wooden as ever, and Tony had been blithe and amused during the escort to their ride. The helicarrier had been upgraded a couple of times since he had last been there, but he didn't feel any boyish excitement getting out onto the deck, now. He had done quite a bit of growing up since, after all.

Bruce Banner was older, and had blinked at him with a sort of rabbity shock when Coulson introduced them again. "Not an intern this time," Tony said dryly.

"Oh." Bruce looked visibly relieved. "Great. Um," he added, more cautiously, frowning, "Congratulations on the Nobel."

"That was ages ago," Tony said, as flippantly as he could. Praise was still an awkward beast where he was concerned, no change there. Bruce, however, only looked more hunted, as though he had just run out of the only topic of conversation he had ever filed under 'Tony' and was scrambling for new ideas. "I read your April treatise on gamma oscillations," Tony added, taking pity on the man, and they were chatting comfortably by the time Coulson reappeared. 

Somewhat to his surprise, Bruce was asked along to the super-secret meeting too, but the gamma radiation expert only looked long-suffering, as though this was a normal occurrence. Attempts to winkle a synopsis from Agent Coulson only produced a certifiably blank expression, and Tony was sulking by the time they were ushered up onto the bridge. 

He had seen the plans when Obi had dropped briefly by Westchester to get his signature on them as a formality, but the scale of it in reality felt like a _dream_. Tiers of silver platforms scaled down towards a main control deck buzzing with people and flickering consoles, and beyond it was a huge arc of glass that looked out over a sea of clouds. Coulson ushered them over to a donut-shaped table on the top tier while Tony gawked and made a mental note to take a trip down to R &D: sure, he _had_ known what projects Stark Industries took on, but guiltily, he realized that he had never, until now, taken any real proprietary interest in them, despite Obi's persistent and polite urgings. It had always been _Dad's_ company to him.

Coulson took up a position at attention near the table, and only looked up when the doors slid back open just barely in time to clear Fury's belligerent stride. The Director also hadn't seemed to have changed much: maybe SHIELD was into de-aging tech or maybe Fury applied the same bullheaded determination into never acquiring wrinkles as he did towards life in general. Behind him was Captain America, who glanced briefly over at Tony before looking back to Fury, and a man and a woman whom Tony took a moment to mentally register as the SHIELD agents 'Hawkeye' and 'Black Widow'. 

Behind _them_ was, of all the people in the universe, _Thor_.

Tony was staring, open-mouthed, floored with shock and half-rising from his seat, even as Thor blinked at him and frowned, one big hand jumping unconsciously towards Mjolnir before it clenched. He looked older, somehow, tired perhaps, and his armour was slightly different, the whorls drawn in dark enamel, his cloak a dull earth-brown. His gorgeous tawny gold hair was hacked short over his shoulders, and his usually trimmed beard was verging on unruly; the worst were his eyes, grim and worn by eternity, like Odin's, where they had once been playful and joyous. 

"Anthony," Thor greeted him, his voice terse, then he nodded to Fury, who was staring thoughtfully at them both, and took a seat at the table between Bruce and Captain America, scratching at his jaw. 

Bewildered and hurt, Tony clenched his teeth so tightly that it ached, and forced himself not to look at Thor again. If Thor wanted to play it cool, well, Tony wasn't a wide-eyed idiot kid with a crush anymore. 

Thankfully, Fury clearly decided not to say anything. "A situation developed at oh-six-hundred hours this morning in Nebraska," the Director began, his hands folded behind his back as Coulson started up the holographic generator at the table, bringing up a laser-traced contour map. "A group of hostile extra-terrestial beings emerged from a controlled wormhole, or what Thor has termed 'slipspace'. They burned a town before they were contained by a team led by Captain America."

"Thor arrived at approximately eleven-hundred hours, also through slipspace," Fury continued, with a hard glare at Thor, whose expression was impassive again. "According to Thor, our uninvited guests are a result of an ongoing war that Asgard has been waging against nine other 'splinter worlds'-"

"Six," Thor corrected quietly. 

"-and judging from their level of combat awareness," Fury continued, ignoring the interruption, "They were quite likely scout units of some sort. The Sons of Muspell."

Tony tried not to flinch, but something must have shown: Fury's glare swung over to him. "Something to add, Stark?"

"Nope. No. Nothing." 

"In any case," Fury growled, "I have just been _kindly_ notified that for some reason that hasn't yet been explained to me, Earth has several 'ley' points that make it accessible through slipspace from the splinter worlds. Thor is here to close them up. We have reasons to expect further incursions at present, so SHIELD and all global defence forces have been put on high alert. You will each be in charge of a ley point, along with a support team on standby. Buckle down. It's going to be a fucking _long_ day."

"Could I have a word with you?" Tony asked Thor, as mildly as he could, while the rest were filing out, and Thor shot him a glance intense with raw desperation for a moment before he blinked, smoothing back to impassiveness.

"Very well," Thor replied, and Tony had to bite down on the urge to punch him in the mouth. The nearest SHIELD bathroom possibly wasn't the best place to have a heart to heart, but Tony would take what he could get.

When Thor turned to face him, however, arms folded, Tony's carefully revised, cutting script shrivelled up and died, and to his sheer mortification he found himself admitting in a rush, "I missed you." 

Even as Tony's hindbrain made a concerted effort to murder the bits of his mind in charge of speech functions, Thor made a hoarse, agonised sound, and before Tony could ask him if something was wrong Thor had him pinned to the bathroom door, and fuck _yes_ they were kissing, his hands clawed in Thor's mane, Thor's fingers clenched over his hips. He had fucked a string of other people, some more inadvisable than most, over the past few years, but no one had ever touched him like this, like worship. It was insane. It was intoxicating.

He got hard embarrassingly quickly, just from kissing, as though he was twenty-nothing all over again, but from the hard arch he could feel against his hip, he wasn't the only one. Thor broke away when Tony nipped experimentally, but before he could stutter an apology, Thor growled, wild-eyed, "Let me, I want- here," and made up for the lack of coherence by cupping Tony through his jeans.

"Fuck _yes_ ," Tony snarled, all reservations about doing something utterly stupid in what was possibly one of the worst places in the world to do it already long discarded, and then he whimpered and bit down hard on his lower lip when Thor immediately went down on his knees. It was messy and the remaining rational part of Tony's brain that was an adult protested the lack of condoms, but Thor was swallowing him down as though he wasn't ever going to let back up, clutching at Tony's hips as though afraid that Tony would pull away and _groaning_ and wow. This was going into Tony's mental book of jerk off material forever. 

"Yeah, come on," Tony hissed roughly, scrabbling at Thor's shoulders and settling his fingers into probably painful claws in his hair, "Come on, take more of me, you're hungry for it aren't you-" Thor made a sound then, like a ragged moan, choked over Tony's dick, breathing out loudly as he bobbed up and down, and for a long moment Tony managed to forget all speech functions altogether, mind blown, fascinated. "Y'look so good on your knees," Tony gasped out the next time his cock hit the back of Thor's throat, encouraged by the low groan that rumbled around him as he spoke, "Do you do this often, _your Highness_?" 

Thor flushed, but made a humming sound as he pulled back, pumping at Tony's cock as he did so with clenching fingers, and Tony was hunching over as he spilled with a cry that he belatedly stifled by stuffing his mouth with his fist.

He slumped back against the door, barely upright, while Thor licked come off the back of his hand absently and straightened up, turning for the sink to wash up perfunctorily. His cock was still tenting his pants, but when Tony managed to corral enough motor ability to stand up and zip, Thor turned to watch him, warily.

"So," Tony began, his voice wrecked and hoarse before he cleared his throat. "I'm glad to see you again too."

Thor managed a brief, mirthless smile at that, and turned back to the sink. "I should have sent another in my place," he said flatly, and washed his face. "But I was selfish."

"Selfish?"

"I wanted to see you once more if I could," Thor dried off, then padded over to press a heartbreakingly light kiss over Tony's mouth, "Before I closed the ley lines to Midgard for good."

"Wait," Tony said sharply, gripping Thor's arms. " _All_ of them?"

"All of them. They were built centuries ago," Thor didn't meet his eyes. "They no longer serve their intended purpose. Worse, they provide a doorway to your world from ours. Asgard has no intention of endangering your people." 

_You're leaving me here_ , Tony wanted to shout, or _You have no right_ , but he was older now, despite what the Professor might think, and he sucked in a slow breath instead. "Fenris came for me."

"I know. I felt its presence the moment I set foot on your world." Thor's tone was carefully neutral. "I think that it was followed to your world."

"How's the war going then?" Tony continued, unable to help the snide note to his voice even if he tried, and Thor's lip curled. 

"It has been costly," he said shortly, brushing Tony aside, reaching for the door. "My father is dead. I am King now."

"I," Tony began, and hastily inserted himself between Thor and the way out, holding up his hands placatingly. "Okay. Can we start over? Maybe from the bit where I said that I missed you? That was pretty promising, I mean, not that I want to repeat the last fifteen minutes, at least, not right now but-"

"Anthony," Thor interrupted, though his smile was amused now, with something of his old playfulness. "Fury is not known for his patience."

"Fenris listens to me now," Tony tried anyway, because he was pathetic like that, and because his brain wasn't yet up to normal function as yet. "I can help. I won't be dead weight."

Thor's expression froze visibly. "Dead weight?"

"Useless," Tony explained, stiffly. "I won't get in anyone's way. We - that is, the other kids and I - we've gotten into our own scrapes. We've even helped out SHIELD here and there. It won't be like the last time."

" _Svass_ ," Thor began, after a moment's silence, then he had Tony pinned against the door again and breathless under a roughened kiss. "It is not your war," Thor said finally, though his eyes were impossibly dark. "Do not ask me this again."

"It already _is_ my war. Burned town? Giant fire monster?"

"Asgard is not your world."

The moment broke bright and perfect and teetering, as though Tony was balanced over a precipice, but this time, he was prepared for the fall. Gods. He felt as though he had been prepared for it all of his life. "It could be," Tony murmured, pressing a palm over the unshaven bristles over Thor's cheek, and Thor closed his eyes, breathing in, harsh and loud. 

"Again you tempt me. This is unkind."

"The first few months when you kicked me back to Earth was unkind," Tony retorted. "I thought it was my fault. I thought - maybe if I had tried harder, or talked to you more, or talked to your Dad, _someone_. I couldn't figure out what had gone wrong-"

A knock on the opposite side of the door made Tony jump and stifle a yelp. "Stark, Thor," Coulson said, oh-so-polite. 

"Oh, for fuck's sake. Five minutes," Tony snapped, but Thor was already pushing away, his expression impassive again.

"If I have caused you any distress in the past I am deeply sorry, Anthony," Thor said formally, if quietly. "You had to leave Asgard not through any failing of yours, but through mine." He nodded at Tony when Tony stared at him, and opened the door, padding out. If Coulson noticed anything at all about the obvious smell in the bathroom, he said nothing, until Thor's footsteps could no longer be heard.

"Wash your face," Coulson told him then, mildly.

"Fuck you," Tony muttered, but he obeyed, and stuffed damp hands in his pockets as he followed Coulson down the corridor.

"I've emailed the coordinates of your ley point to you," Coulson continued blithely. "Get there as soon as you can."

"I know the drill," Tony retorted, and because he was still in a Mood, added, "What happened to putting in a word for me?"

"You went to Asgard," Coulson pointed out calmly.

"I came back."

"SHIELD has talent of its own, Mister Stark. And we remain a client of your company." When Tony made a frustrated noise, Coulson - miraculously enough - seemed to soften slightly. "An offer was put through to the Director upon your return to ensure that you had as normal a life as possible, in exchange for classified technology. The Director accepted."

"What?" Tony said, incredulous, then growled, "Why, that _bastard_." 

"Regrettably there is no real measure of 'normal' for an S-class mutant with a genius level intellect, even discounting the matter of your family's business, Mister Stark," Coulson lifted a shoulder into a shrug. "But I like to think that we have tried, somewhat. Admission requirements in certain universities that would otherwise not have accepted mutant students were smoothed, for example."

There was a long, tense silence, then Tony muttered, "Thanks, I guess." Correspondence or not, he _had_ enjoyed MIT.

"You're welcome." 

"So why am I in on this gig, then?"

"The Director thought that it might be advantageous, given that by your account your mutant abilities can effectively neutralise what we are facing." 

Tony didn't ask how Coulson was aware of Tony's full confession to the Professor, and bit down on his retort. "Yeah." It brought to question _why_ Thor himself couldn't see this. "I'll, uh, try my best."

"If I may provide some advice," Coulson continued, and his voice was gentle now. "The best decisions never involve yielding to the inevitable."

"I'll like to see you repeat this to the Director if something blows up," Tony noted, blinking and revising his mental impression of the dour agent. 

"You will be unable to prove that I said anything to you of the sort, Mister Stark."

VII.

Despite - or maybe because of - Fury's dire predictions of death and destruction, there was no action in the least. Tony sat on a rock in the middle of endless flat grasslands somewhere in the arse end of Mongolia, somewhat bored and annoyed. In the distance, he could see little white dots, probably nomads and their herd animals, and if not for how Fenris had snuffled along behind him, darkening the sky above, Tony would have fallen asleep at his post hours ago.

The sky was turning into the evening by the time Thor abruptly dropped out of the sky, his cloak scorched along the edges, his armour sooty, and the first thing Tony's mouth managed was "What the hell? There was action elsewhere?"

Instead of shooting him a reproachful look, Thor grinned at him; battle-lust had kicked back all that was somber and haunted in Thor, pulled back that gorgeous leonine smile, and Tony's heart felt wound up tight, like glass. "The Captain's ley point was… difficult."

"Wonderful." Of course the guy with the biggest stick up his arse was the one who got _all_ the fun. "How many more after this?"

"Yours is the last." Thor's smile faded quickly, solemn again. "The Sons of Muspell can sense Fenris' presence. You would have been safe."

"I may have nearly died of boredom." Above him, Fenris growled, the clouds scudding lower, as though the storm was thinking of reaching down for him. "What now? If you close the door when you're here, aren't you stuck here?" 

"This one will be closed from the other side."

"So you'll be in Muspelheim, or worse. Alone." 

Thor shrugged. "It would not be anything new."

"Oh, for the love of…" Tony exhaled, and rubbed a hand up over his hair. "Look. My life will never be normal, all right? Even if… even if I was born fully human. I was never going to be normal." 

"I know that," Thor tensed, his jaw set, as though preparing for a blow. "Yours is an uncommon soul."

"Well, uh, thanks, I guess." Compliments. Awkward. "And I'm old enough to make my own decisions." 

"Anthony-"

"And I figure," Tony added, his voice edged, "That there's got to be more than one way to come back here, if I ever wanted to visit, and even if there isn't, I'll find a way. So don't think that I'm losing anything, or… or… in danger, and anyway _you_ were more than happy to let me sit here longer than anyone else because of Fenris and-"

"Anthony," Thor could move quickly; he had Tony clasped in his arms in an instant, his mouth pressed over Tony's jaw, tickling down to the pulse at his neck. "When Surtr knocked you from the rock," he murmured then, harsh and soft, "I thought that you had perished."

"I don't die that easily." 

"You are far too young to-"

" _And_ ," Tony added, his voice edged this time, "If you don't take me with you, I swear that between Fenris and I, we _will_ figure out slipspace by ourselves. We'll find a way back to Asgard, except that we won't be able to predict when or where." 

Thor's jaw clenched, and he leaned back, glaring, but Tony merely arched an eyebrow at him, and eventually, Thor muttered something roughly in another tongue and leaned down, pressing their foreheads together, breathing in, then out. "All right," he said finally. "Your victory."

"Naturally." 

"Call the storm," Thor's hands slipped from Tony's back to his waist. "Have you any goodbyes to make?"

"Already made them an hour ago. What did you think I was doing when I was sitting here by myself, playing tetris?" Tony grinned cockily, and Thor snorted, though he smiled in return, if with reluctance.

"You were confident."

"Yeah. Comes with the territory." Thank you, Coulson. "Let's get out of here."

VIII.

Asgard was unrecognisable. Many of the towers were sooty and burned, and it seemed as though at least a quarter of the gleaming city was in ruins. No more satin robes and gleaming dresses; its citizens wore sensible, dull clothes, and nearly everyone had armour on them of some sort. Thor got a few respectful nods on his way up into the palace, and Tony got more than a few curious glances.

Then Fenris coalesced again, above the skyward dome, and there was a whisper around the people they passed that turned into a roar, and Thor's jaw was clenched again as they pushed through excited and painfully hopeful people up the stairway into the palace. 

Heimdall glanced at him from the gate, but made no comment as Thor led him through. The huge hallway he had once admired was now a hospital, and Tony tried not to look too closely at the patients with amputations or horrific burns as they went up a curved stair, towards a wide corridor.

"Why aren't we flying?" Tony asked, hushed and numbed from all that he had seen so far. 

"Policy," Thor replied, as they turned a corner. "Flying is now reserved for emergencies."

They emerged into a stateroom that was ringed by holograms, each more detailed than the rest, and it took Tony a moment to realize that the holograms showed images of the splinter worlds, occasionally flickering to and from focus points. Near the balcony, Frigg was speaking quietly with a group of exhausted, older men and women, with Sif at her side, and they glanced up in surprise at Thor's approach.

"Leave us," Frigg instructed, and the murmuring advisers were escorted out of the room by Sif, who smiled briefly at Tony in recognition before she closed the door behind them. Once they were gone, Frigg's expression of iron calm fractured a little. "My son?"

"The Stormchild has chosen to return," Thor noted wryly, rather unnecessarily, in Tony's opinion, and then Thor's lips quirked upwards. "You were right, Mother."

"Of course." Frigg glided over, queenly as ever, and clasped Thor's hands, squeezing tight, then she stepped over to Tony, who stared at her warily. "We should not expect miracles from you, child."

"Good to know, I guess?"

"But…" Frigg hesitated, then her eyes flickered away, to the array of holograms. "This war has been more costly than we could have imagined."

"I came here to help and I will," Tony declared, glancing over to Thor in challenge, but Thor merely dipped his head silently. 

That night in bed, Tony determinedly reached for Thor's belt, scowling when Thor absently caught his wrist yet again. "Oh, come _on_ ," he complained. "I'm fairly sure that we were meant to have mindblowing reunion sex."

"There was the bathroom," Thor noted, poker-faced, though his eyes were sparking with amusement. "In Midgard."

"You call _that_ sex? I call that a warm-up."

"Anthony," Thor pinned his wrists down beside his head, his amusement fading, "Humanity… loves in terms of time. Your kind loves and loses and loves again. You _learn_ love, over time, and often forget it, gently or abruptly, also over time. Sex for your kind is often just… recreational."

"Uh… sure?" Tony blinked, trying to concentrate, difficult when one had 'Exhibit A: Gorgeous Pagan God' leaning over you and giving you his undivided attention.

"Asgardians live beyond time, for the most part," Thor continued patiently. "Our emotions too are not worn by time, and symbolism-"

"You're trying to tell me that you love me," Tony concluded, as his operational brain kicked him firmly, shocked. "Really?"

"Yes," Thor said simply, his smile leonine and warm and bright. "But perhaps not as your kind would count love. We love the sum total of our beloved, who they are, what they will be, what they were. So you see, _svass_ ," Thor added quietly, "You are not the only one to whom these years have been unkind."

"You could have told me this _earlier_ ," Tony began, stopped, then growled, "They didn't _have_ to be!" 

"I may have been mistaken about some assumptions," Thor allowed, as he brushed a kiss over Tony's forehead, then butterfly-soft, over his eyes. "But know that if you want what I have said, it cannot be undone, not by our laws." 

It was too quick, Tony's rational mind clamoured. He was still pretty young, and he hadn't actually known Thor for _that_ long, really, and seriously, marriage? Or bonding? Or whatever it was? But the rest of him, the heart of him, already knew what his answer would be, sappy at it was. No one had ever looked at him the way Thor did, as though he was everything that was worth anything at all in all of the worlds. 

"I hate weddings," He said finally, out of nothing better to say, swallowing hard, reaching up to stroke his fingers through tawny-gold hair. 

"Thankfully," Thor murmured, as he kissed down Tony's cheek to his throat, "That much of the formal process is unnecessary."

Getting stretched to Thor's satisfaction took just as painstakingly long as Tony remembered and worse, but it was worth it, agonising as it was during the first stretch of Thor's ridiculously large cock. Thor laughed when Tony voiced this very thought, but his voice was strained, which Tony took as a plus, his hands fisted on the sheets and his forehead bent against the pillows, arched on his elbows and knees. The rough slide until Thor was balls-deep _burned_ , and Tony was gasping around the grip his teeth had on the pillow by the time Thor was kissing down over the back of his neck, murmuring something incoherent and soothing. 

This was Thor's first, Tony realized dully, dazed, and wished for one weirdly insane moment that he had thought to wait, that the past set of years could be reversed - not that it would have done much good, given that Tony had lost his virginity bang on sixteen: and then Thor moaned against his ear and bit down against the lobe and he forgot his bitterness. His body opened to Thor's eventually, gentling, but despite his pleas Thor merely set a palm against his back and rocked forward gently, exploring, his breaths in whispers of wonderment. 

"Harder," Tony whimpered, when Thor didn't speed up, instead rolling a deep thrust up against Tony's prostate again, fuck, he was beginning to see stars, "Thor!" 

"Patience," Thor replied yet again, his breath hot and wet against the back of Tony's neck. Despite Tony's whines and squirming Thor had seemingly endless immortal patience for driving him insane, and Tony had a feeling - hells - he had a feeling that this was going to go for as long as it took for Tony to break all the way down.

He begged until his voice gave out.

He was sobbing in harsh, thick sobs and moaning incoherently by the time Thor thought to pick up, his thrusts turning sharper, shallower, until nails were digging into Tony's hips as Thor ground in as deeply as he could go with a hoarse cry. Tony's belly was soaked, he didn't remember how many times he had already come on Thor's cock and he was blinking dumbly when Thor pulled back and rolled him over to kiss him. His hips twitched when Thor started stroking him, oversensitized, raw, but big fingers wrung one last orgasm from him, Thor's voice rumbling against his ear as he cried out and trembled.

IX.

Tony sat on the shattered lip of the Bifrost bridge, watching as the temporal shields hummed and started back up, Fenris grumbling and growling as it flowed obligingly up over to the ether, out of range. He had a few more scars now, and a bit of a limp, but his modified Asgardian armour sat a little more comfortably over his shoulders, and JARVIS had been patched seamlessly into the Asgardian comms.

Life, Tony felt, with some satisfaction, as he dangled his boots out over infinite space, was endlessly self-refracting.

He felt rather than saw Thor land beside him, armor clinking until Thor settled down on the bridge as well, a big hand going over his hip, lips exploring his ear, ticklish and soft. Today was no small victory, but it would only be the beginning. 

"Someone asked me for a blessing just now," Tony said abruptly, staring down at the stars and the mist of the endless waterfall. "It was fucking weird."

"You _are_ the Stormchild," Thor shrugged, though there was amusement in his tone, and Tony shoved irritably at him.

"Yeah, right. A blessing from Tony Stark. That'll count against your karmic balance, if anything. _You're_ the Thunder God. Maybe you're used to this kind of thing, but to me, it's creepy."

"Noted," Thor patted his hip complacently, looking down into the void as well, and Tony snuck up a quick glance at his lover and companion. The weariness was no longer there, and although the Thor he had first met was irrevocably gone, there was wisdom there in his place, and strength. Adoration, now worn openly in his gaze. Tony didn't miss the change.

"What's next?" Tony asked, to break the thick silence, as his heart felt full and tight all over again, strung out on Thor like a lovesick puppy. "Jotunheim?"

"I was hoping," Thor said, so very seriously, "That you would revise your thoughts about bonding ceremonies."

It took a long moment for Thor's statement to sink through, then Tony was grinning stupidly even as he folded his arms; now, now he felt as though his heart would burst. "Not a chance."

"There would have to be two," Thor allowed, as though he hadn't heard. "One in Asgard, and one in Midgard, when you devise a way to return." 

Rogue would have a heart attack. Possibly Fury, too. And as to Obi and the board of directors… "Still no," Tony decided, though he let Thor pull him onto his lap, straddling him with his arms over his shoulderplates. "No rings. No priests. Maybe the drunken party. I think that bit should be fine."

"It would be a good party," Thor agreed, leaning up for a kiss, then another, more greedily, until Tony grinned and pulled away, breathless.

"What brought this on?"

"I felt perhaps the formalities of my claim on you were due," Thor had the balls to say, because Thor was never particularly good at subtlety at the best of times, though when he smiled his leonine smile, intense with promise, it still took Tony's breath away. "If I could, I would write it large across the stars." 

"Interstellar vandalism aside," Tony whispered, with an answering, raw smile of his own, "You've already carved it clear where it matters." 

Thor hummed, a palm going up over Tony's chest, over the hammering beat of his heart; above, the storm played over the dome, rumbling and wild. Tony breathed in, then out, and tugged Thor's hand up to his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Umm lol. Hope everyone enjoyed that?
> 
> EDIT: Note: this is part 2. For some reason it shows up as Part 4 to some people (AO3 bug?) Ah well.


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